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Monday, Nov. 21, 2016
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TRUMP PROTEST
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Khone Saysamongdy • The Collegian
Protestors marching on the corner of Blackstone and Ness avenues at River Park Shopping Center on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2016. The protest was in response to Donald Trump being elected president.
SUBSTANCE ABUSE
TV star tells story of substance abuse to ‘full house’ at SSU
By Troy Pope @troycpope
“I’m the happiest I’ve ever been with the least I’ve ever had. Life feels full again.” TV star Jodie Sweetin talked to a full house in the Satellite Student Union Thursday night to discuss her life in front of the camera and her life of substance abuse. About 500 people showed up to see the “Full House” star talk very casually about her life on the TV show and what happened after – and the crowd loved it. During a Q&A period after her talk, she was asked to say her character’s signature catchphrase “How rude” – which she did – and the crowd erupted in applause and cheers. Sweetin, now 34, was born to a drug-addicted mother who was serving a sentence in LA County Jail. Her father, who was serving a prison sentence, was stabbed to death in a prison riot when she was 9 months old. Family friends took care of her as a baby until she was adopted a year later. Sweetin spent eight seasons portraying Stephanie Tanner on ABC’s “Full House” in the ’80s and ’90s. After the series ended, she said the loss of everything she’d grown used to for eight years felt like a death to her. “Full House” ran from 1987 to 1995, and it was a part of ABC’s flagship TGIF programing. In order to not feel the pain of the loss, she turned to alcohol and eventually hard drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine. “What I realized is I took those skills
Khone Saysamongdy • The Collegian
Jodie Sweetin shares her story of alcohol and drug abuse, as well as her journey to recovery at the Satellite Student Union on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016. Sweetin is known for her role as Stephanie Tanner in the show “Full House.”
of pretending and acting along with me throughout my whole journey of my life,” Sweetin said. “This time, I started pretending that I knew how to act – how to have friends – how to be normal. And inside, I was alone and scared, and I had all these feelings that I had no idea how to deal with.” She said she had trouble coping with her new reality and integrating into real life. “I started getting really depressed, but I couldn’t talk to anybody because I thought
if I talked about how I was feeling, that something was wrong with me,” Sweetin said. “But inside I felt alone, and I felt ashamed, and I felt scared.” She said she was trying to figure out how to feel comfortable in her own skin, so she turned to alcohol at 13. She described herself as a “blackout drinker” and did everything she could to not remember what was going on. She got sober and relapsed several times
over the years. She’s been through two marriages, had a daughter, and now she’s engaged again. Sweetin, who has been sober more than five years now, went to college to get her certificate in drug and alcohol counseling. She tours the country to speak at colleges to tell her story because she said that if you tell your story, “it no longer owns you.”
See SWEETIN, Page 3